Category: dance

The 90s were a dismal time for dance in America. A new study reports falling audiences, declining funding and major debt by most companies. Which dance companies fared best? “The ballets that most effectively coped with financial crises were medium-sized companies with annual budgets of $1 million to $5 million.” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

Boston’s Dance Umbrella, New England’s prominent presenter of new dance, is shutting down. “Faced with a pile of unpaid bills, a still unresolved separation settlement with company founder and former artistic director Jeremy Alliger, and few prospects of raising serious money, the Umbrella board is scrambling to make a graceful exit from the local dance arena.” Boston Globe

Alliger denies that negotiations over his leaving are causing Dance Umbrella to close. “My point of view is that the board sort of painted the story that the financial troubles are because of our negotiations. Nah! That’s just a drop in the bucket.” Boston Herald

When breakdancers and members of London’s Royal Ballet get together to try out one another’s moves, mutual appreciation break out. Sunday Times (London) 04/01/01

Alina Cojocaru is London’s Royal Ballet’s hottest new star. “The fact that Cojocaru is dancing this iconic role aged only 19 might in itself seem newsworthy, given that she last appeared in the ballet several months ago as an anonymous member of the corps de ballet. But for anyone who has followed her career since she joined the Royal Ballet in November 1999, this is just one more debut to add to a remarkable list.” The Guardian (London)

American Ballet Theatre executive director Louis G. Spisto has been accused, in a complaint filed by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, of illegally favoring young, gay employees. “A policy was developed to ‘disengage’ older workers in favour of younger ones, generally male, who would not be uncomfortable with the management’s preference and discourse of gay lifestyles.” At least 30 staff members have left since Spisto’s arrival in 1999. The Times (London)

St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater is staging a new version of The Nutcracker. Music director Valery Gergiyev has a new interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s music, but it’s the choreography that has everyone talking. Mikhail Shemyakin is “focusing on the darker spirit of Ernst Hoffmann’s 19th-century children’s tale in order to bring out more of the story’s inherent fantasy. At the end, [the little girl] rejects the adult world and chooses never to return to reality. At the ballet’s climax she turns into a sugar figure on a giant cake.” The Moscow Times (Reuters)

In Ireland, the Arts Council has awarded £433,000 to stage a major dance festival. Great – but even in Ireland’s prosperous times, its dance infrastructure is in need of major repairs. Irish Times

“Less than a year after Philadelphia’s modern dance community lost its most important rehearsal space, [a prominent local dancer] is making plans to turn a cluster of garage buildings in the Spring Garden neighborhood into the city’s first theater dedicated exclusively to modern dance.” Philadelphia Inquirer

“Each year, any permanent member of the Paris Opéra Ballet wanting promotion to leading dancer, soloist or coryphée (a kind of demi-soloist) can apply to take part in a competition created for the purpose. More than half of them do so.” The Independent (London)